Sub-free room draw policy should change

Spring has returned to Princeton, and with it, room draw. Though this process has its ups and downs, one of its definite strengths is its system of designated substance-free housing. By allowing flexibility for lifestyle preferences and creating tight-knit communities of likeminded peers, Princeton's sub-free program deserves praise.

Recently, however, substance-free policy has been changed for the worse. Whereas in previous years, students committed to sub-free housing before knowing where they would draw, today the locations of sub-free dorms are publicized prior to preference selection. This gives students who do not plan on remaining sub-free an incentive to lie in order to draw into particularly choice sub-free rooms. Once ensconced in such dorms, these students are likely to break the policies of the sub-free environment. Beyond causing troubles for the local RCA, this trend has the potential to undermine the culture of the substance-free environment and alienate those who chose it based on principle or belief.

Besides this negative consequence for the sub-free environment, the revised policy also harms general campus culture in two significant ways. First, students who are willing to change their alcohol preferences for the incentive of a nicer room are likely those who tend to be moderate in their drinking habits. If fewer of them are interspersed among the general dormitories, then a campus-wide bifurcation into extremes of alcohol use will develop. Second, such a policy exaggerates campus interest in substance-free living, leading to a misallocation of dormitory space on the part of the residential colleges.

For the sake of campus diversity, college unity and RCA sanity, it is far better for housing to be interspersed with students whose alcohol preferences differ from one another on a gradual continuum. The University should return to its earlier policy of requiring students to commit to sub-free housing prior to room draw and choosing their dorm from a separate, sub-free pool.